What I Watched Today: Ulysses – Jeanne d’Arc to Renkin no Kishi

Um, spoilers much? To be fair, this can’t be much of a surprise. After all, Jeanne d’Arc is in the title. If she’s not the main girl, then who is? And looking across the character designs for all of the other girls, I would have to pick Jeanne d’Arc too. Everyone else seems to have impossibly gigantic breasts. Is this Madan no Ou to Vanadis all over again? Of course, personality is more important, but we don’t have that to work with right now. But I digress. This anime is somewhat harem-y, and those shows usually like to pretend to be dumb. Who will the main character end up with? Gosh, I have no clue! Could it be the main heroine?! Oh well, it doesn’t matter.

Anyways, the first episode takes its sweet time setting the stage. As a result, I’m going to skip talking about, like, a good 60% of it. You’re not really missing anything but some very basic characterization. We’re introduced to Montmorency, who is supposed to be a knight but he’s much more interested in the forbidden art of alchemy. He’s also a typical do-gooder. He’s flanked by a bunch of classmates who all seem to have a crush on him (of course). Montmorency and his girls promise to remain friends forever, which is a sure sign that tragedy is about to strike. Good ol’ predictable storytelling. Anyways, there is also that neverending war between France and England, which figures to be the main conflict that will drive this entire narrative. As a result, Montmorency’s friend Richemont (she’s a girl but her first name is Arthur?) is compelled to join the battlefield. He tries to rescue her, but by the time he gets to Azincourt, the battle has already been lost and the girl is nowhere to be found. There’s no doubt that she’s been taken prisoner. Let’s just hope that her captors aren’t too cruel.

Again, in this fantasy universe, magic and alchemy are a thing, so our hero turns to the philosopher’s stone in his possession for help. He’s so desperate to save Richemont that he’ll sell his soul in order to become more powerful. This is no beherit or anything, so all that happens is that he manages to summon Astaroth, who is somehow also a girl. Not only that, she claims to be the queen of the fairies. I thought Astaroth was a demon in folklore. In fact, I thought Titania was the queen of the fairies. Ah, no matter. The fairy queen tells Montmorency that he can simply swallow the philosopher’s stone in order to become more powerful. Ah, but the catch is that it’ll also poison him. He’ll thus need to create an elixir that will allow the stone to go down easy. So the guy sets about accomplishing this task, but he still fails. According to Astaroth, he has no talent for the art of alchemy. Nevertheless, seven goddamn years have somehow flown by. Seven. What the hell just happened here?

Also, poor Richemont. Let’s hope she wasn’t captive for the past seven years. Still, the ED suggests that this show might get a bit trashy. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that I don’t have to watch two different shows that feature rape this season. Since Ulysses – Jeanne d’Arc to Renkin no Kishi is just going to be another lame harem with a scant bit of action and magic, it probably won’t go there… probably. We’ll see, though. More importantly, I’ll wait until Jeanne d’Arc is introduced before I decide whether or not to continue following this show. She looks like she’s got the bit of the crazies, so who knows? Maybe she can salvage this anime.

There is creative freedom and there is “Why bother giving your OC names from established characters if they extremely barely have any kind of connection with those established characters?” Trashy anime just have to be trashy I guess.

The problem with that is Jeanne’s name might be in the title but is only more of a minor character compared to Montmorency as he is the main character. With that being said, Jeanne d’ Arc who was a real person was executed which follows almost some of the same events that the anime does.

There is also a surprise in one of the volumes of the LN that even rectifies this further.
If you really want to know just read volume 5, even if you read the synopsis you would find out.